Huawei’s Soft-Sell Approach Breaks With Tradition

When China’s Huawei Technologies Co. released its 2012 annual report this week, the company did something it had never done before: it made two of its most senior executives available at once for a roundtable with reporters from both Western and Chinese media.

Bloomberg News

While it’s not unusual for top executives at listed Western companies to speak with the media, Huawei’s latest meeting with reporters was a significant and much-needed step for the privately held Chinese technology firm, which has been struggling to improve its reputation in the U.S.

In October, a U.S. congressional report said that Huawei and ZTE Corp., another Chinese telecommunications network infrastructure provider, posed a threat to national security, citing concerns that their equipment might be used by Beijing to spy on Americans. Huawei and ZTE strongly denied the allegations.

“As for what happened in the U.S., as you know, we have some difficulties,” Chief Executive Guo Ping told reporters at the roundtable. ”But I believe that, one day, we can solve the challenges in the U.S.”

The meeting, held at Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, was a rare occasion for Mr. Guo to speak with international media, and only the second such occasion for Chief Financial Officer Cathy Meng, who had her first on-the-record meeting with international media in Beijing in January.

It’s not highly uncommon for executives at Chinese and other Asian companies to keep a low profile and make few public appearances, partly because they are inexperienced in dealing with the media and also because of the view that they should be focusing on their companies’ operations rather than talking about what they do.

For Huawei, however, lingering security concerns in the U.S. have created a more urgent need to enhance communication and transparency. Huawei’s founder and chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, has never done any media interviews since he started the company 25 years ago. According to the company, Mr. Ren has always focused more on management and customers, but he has encouraged other executives to play greater roles in external communication. Huawei’s 13-member board, for example, includes Chen Lifang, the company’s head of public affairs and communications.

“All our executives know that they need to talk to the media,” said Scott Sykes, Huawei vice president and head of international media affairs. The question is not whether to enhance communication but how. Over the past two years, Huawei–the world’s second-largest telecom equipment supplier after Sweden’s Ericsson–has built a larger global public relations team more appropriate for a company with over $35 billion in annual revenue and 150,000 employees world-wide. It has also made more of its senior executives available for interviews.

“We know how important this is. We totally get it, and we are embracing it,” said Mr. Sykes about Huawei’s PR efforts. “Is there still room for improvements? Yes.”